so here is a question that I shouldn't be having so much trouble researching, but I am. Basically I want to create a webpage that loads in a header and a side bar. The header is it's own file header.php and the sidebar is leftBar.php. The following code is my index page, yet I am failing to have these pages loaded. I believe it has something to do with a lacking css page. But I have not found anything useful to help me solve this problem. What I would like to do is have the leftBar.php display its text on the left side of the page and the header.php file at the top. Below is the linked pages.
index.php
<html>
<head>
<title>junk</title>
</head>
<body>
junk
<?php
include ('styles/header.php');
include ('styles/leftBar.php');
?>
</body>
</html>
leftBar.php
<html>
left
</html>
header.php
<html>
header
</html>
In your include files, just place the code snippet that you want to appear on the page where it's included. You certainly don't want extra <html> elements (etc.) included at various places on the page.
I have a similar setup myself for the menu bar of a test site.
I think you have unnecessary brackets around your include file paths.
index.php:
<?php
include 'menu.php';
echo "$MENU";
?>
menu.php:
<?php
$MENU = '<table class="mainmenu"><tr><td>Home</td></tr><tr><td>Useful-Sites</td></tr></table>';
?>
You don't need to declare html tag for header.php and leftBar.php. A php file should start with <?php and end with ?>. Try learning php first http://w3schools.com/php/default.asp.
trouble researching?
first page of google:
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_includes.asp
http://www.tizag.com/phpT/include.php
http://php.about.com/od/tutorials/ht/template_site.htm
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/php/php_file_inclusion.htm
Please look at these pages, and then update your question if you have to.
Related
I'm looking for advice on the best practice for separating site content up into logical blocks. I want a header and footer that are constant throughout the site, so that if I have several pages of different content, they will all look as below — changes made to the header and footer then update automatically without me having to change each individual page.
<?php
include 'header.php';
?>
<body>
<p>page content here</p>
</body>
<?
include 'footer.php';
?>
The header.php would contain the opening <html>, <head> and static content, and the footer.php would contain any extra static content and the closing </html> tag. So, my question is: Is this a good approach? I'm worried that spreading the <html> tags across multiple files is bad practice. If so, what is the right way to approach this kind of design?
Nope, your approach is wrong.
Here are main faults in your design:
You're assuming that header.php would be called on the every page call. That's wrong.
You're assuming that header.php will always be static. That's wrong.
You forgot to create a template for the page itself.
The main rule everyone have to learn by heart:
Not a single character has to be sent into browser, until all data gets ready.
Why?
it's 2011 today. AJAX era. What if your code will have to send JSONed data instead of whole HTML page?
there is a thing called HTTP header. Sometimes we have to send them. And it's gets impossible if you already have your ornate HTML header sent.
it's for just 4-page site. Okay. Imagine you've got lucky and got a request for another 4-page site. You will have to change only templates and don't touch engine files. That's really great benefit.
Imagine you're going to make a custom <title> tag for your pages, based on the page content. Isn't it extremely common thing? But you can't make it without using templates.
So, you have to have one common site template containing header and footer and also dedicated templates for the every php script.
An example layout is going to be like this:
.1. page itself.
it outputs nothing but only gather required data and calls a template:
<?php
//include our settings, connect to database etc.
include dirname($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']).'/cfg/settings.php';
//getting required data
$DATA=dbgetarr("SELECT * FROM links");
$pagetitle = "Links to friend sites";
//etc
//and then call a template:
$tpl = "links.tpl.php";
include "template.php";
?>
.2. template.php which is your main site template,
consists of your header and footer:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>My site. <?=$pagetitle?></title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="page">
<?php include $tpl ?>
</div>
</body>
</html>
.3. and finally links.tpl.php is the actual page template:
<h2><?=$pagetitle?></h2>
<ul>
<?php foreach($DATA as $row): ?>
<li><?=$row['name']?></li>
<?php endforeach ?>
<ul>
easy, clean and maintainable.
In building off of Your Common Sense's answer, there's not a good reason to have 2 files for every page. You can easily combine your template (YCS called this .tpl.php) and your actual page into one file.
First, start off with a class that you can expand as your template needs expand:
<?php
#lib/PageTemplate.php
class PageTemplate {
public $PageTitle;
public $ContentHead;
public $ContentBody;
}
Then, make your layout:
<?php
# layout.php
require_once('lib/PageTemplate.php');
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<title><?php if(isset($TPL->PageTitle)) { echo $TPL->PageTitle; } ?></title>
<?php if(isset($TPL->ContentHead)) { include $TPL->ContentHead; } ?>
</head>
<body>
<div id="content">
<?php if(isset($TPL->ContentBody)) { include $TPL->ContentBody; } ?>
</div>
</body>
</html>
And finally, add your page with the body content:
<?php
#Hello.php
require_once('lib/PageTemplate.php');
# trick to execute 1st time, but not 2nd so you don't have an inf loop
if (!isset($TPL)) {
$TPL = new PageTemplate();
$TPL->PageTitle = "My Title";
$TPL->ContentBody = __FILE__;
include "layout.php";
exit;
}
?>
<p><?php echo "Hello!"; ?></p>
This is a basic approach but, yeah, it does work :) I sure would bother with a lot of templating and OOP but you are definitely on the right path
As i can't comment anymore, then i will answer here ;) If he need a custom title then he needs some more advanced functions. So, as i told, this is a basic approach. But in the end, if he really have a static header/footer, and really use them everywhere, well, yes, this is a good way to go.
So ofc you could bother with some advanced headers with parameters you could feed on each page. You could go on a whole MVC stuff. In the end just tell him to use a pre-made framework and stop bothering. How could he learn if you don't let him do some trial and error ?
index.php -- includes header, footer, and content based on REQUEST variable.
header.php -- header content
footer.php -- footer content
content1.php, content2.php, etc.
index.php:
<?php
include ('header.php');
// VERY IMPORTANT - do not use the GET variable directly like this
// make sure to filter it through a white-list
include(basename($_GET['page']).'.php');
include ('footer.php');
?>
if you want the URL to go www.domain.com/pagename where the page you're trying to load into index.php is "pagename", use HTACCESS and do some URL Rewriting: http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess2.php
I'm making a website with multiple pages with About info, Projects, Events etc.
My first question is, how can I include my nav bar, header and footer to be in all of the html files without copying the full code for each of them?
My second question is, how should the html structure look in the separate header/footer files so I can include them in my pages html's?
If you mention PHP as a solution, please point me to some link/tutorial for the process.
If you use php files you could do something like this:
index.php:
<?
include("header.php");
?>
//page content
<?
include("footer.php")
?>
header.php:
<head>
//head
</head>
<body>
footer.php:
<footer>
//footer
</footer>
</body>
In the header.php you could put the tags etc.
In every page you could just include these files than
You can create specific files for header and footer and require them in the pages you need them.
require 'footer.php'
require 'header.php'
First you need to make three files navbar.php, header.php and footer.php which contains their code separately.
Now in your each web pages place the below code.
include('header.php'); //Your website header code will be load from header.php
include('navbar.php'); //Your website navbar code will be load from navbar.php
include('footer.php');//Your website footer code will be load from footer.php
You can do with AngularJS. If you do not want to use server side scripting
http://www.w3schools.com/angular/
<body ng-app="">
<div ng-include="'header.htm'"></div>
Your page goes here
</body>
do not forget to add AngularJS library or you can use cdn.
I am making website and this website will have more than 20pages.
I am using my template to add a webpage. This template has header and footer, so I just add the body of new page.
But, what if I want to change navigation bar in the header, then I have to change all 20 pages that I already made to correct.
I want to know better way.
I read a book, and it says about "php include" function.
Should I use this function in the header and footer of each webpage to call header and footer file?
If I want to change the navigation bar in the header, all I can do is changing only one header file, then rest of website will be changed.
Is this correct way?
In this case, what do you do?
I am a beginner, so please advise me.
Thank you in advance.
You should build your website as following. The header.html would contain the navigation.
header.html
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
...
</head>
<body>
<nav>
...
</nav>
footer.html
<footer>
...
</footer>
</body>
</html>
page.php
<?php
require_once 'header.html';
?>
Your content goes here
<?php
require_once 'footer.html';
?>
You should use require_once so the header and footer will be imported only once per script and if the header or footer cant be found, the script will throw an exception and stop the "application".
"require_once" and "require" are language constructs and not functions. Therefore they should be written without "()" brackets!
Yes this is the correct way or you could just copy your header and footer code to every .html file (if you don't like PHP)
Yes, this is the correct way. Try to think of the DRY principle - don't repeat yourself. Elements of your web page that are common across multiple pages can be coded once, then called in. If you need to update these elements, you update them once and it affects all pages.
You then "include" these elements into your page, and the elements are self contained files. As a basic example you would have header.php
<html>
<head><!-- all of your head meta tags in here--></head>
<body>
<div id="header"><!--your header elements and top menu in here --></div>
and footer.php:
<div id="footer"><!-- your footer elements in here--></div>
</body>
</html>
Don't forget in both header and footer files you can then put dynamic code if you wish. Then for each of your pages you would simply call these files in using include, include_once, require or require_once
<?php
include('header.php');
//this is where your actual page content goes
include('footer.php');
?>
A very basic example, but hopefully that makes sense to you.
Correct.
If you include another php file it will calculate/ask for input/do output (whatever you do in the file) as part of your main file.
If you include a php file that has a function you can later call this function without it showing in your main file. (Saves space in your main file)
So your 20 pages may only need a few lines of body text and the rest is header and footer. This will make changes very easy
I have decided to build my site website from scratch, rather than using Wordpress, Magento or a bootstrap template.
I'm looking for a good guide to do so, Code Academy and w3schools are good for learning specific elements of HTML and CSS but I'm looking for a good guide for how to structure my site.
I am playing around with creating an index.php using e.g. to include all element of the page to make creating the individual pages of my site clean and more efficient that including the include for header and footer on each page.
One issue I am having is that I am struggling to understand how to include the different pages within the index.php. I have searched for this but I obviously am not finding the correct words to search for this as I'm struggling to find a decent answer. I think I need something along the lines of a wildcard so that I can say to call all html files within my pages folder so that all pages are using my index.php template.
Below is my index.php to help explain. Thanks in advance and apologies if this question is answered elsewhere on the site, I searched but did not find anyone else answering the same question!
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<php include "head.html" ?>
<body>
<div class="container">
<php include "navigation.html" ?>
<div class="wrapper">
<php include pages/*.html ?>
</div>
</div>
</body>
<php include "footer.html" ?>
</html>
It looks to me like you are almost there. I am not sure of the syntax you are using works, but the code below is used in some of my sites to include a header:
<?php include('includes/header.php'); ?>
This means include the code in the file 'header.php' that is in the folder 'includes', which is on the same level as the file that is calling the code.
The result would be that the 2 files are merged in to one when the page is loaded, with the code from header.php being inserted in place of the line
<?php include('includes/header.php'); ?>
You need to pass variables in URL e.g index.php?page=home and then in your index.php file you shoud get that variable $page = $_GET['page']. Now in $page you have name of the file to include
<?php include($page.'.html') ?>
For now, I skipped security issues of that solution.
Something basic that i don't understand:
I have header.php with navigation bar for my site. Inside it, there's a <head>...</head> section.
Now, in each other page of my site, I'm using require_once 'header.php' so that each page will show the navigation bar. But, I need also specific <head>...</head> sections to the different page.
For example, in page customers.php, I'm using <script>...</script> to include the jQuery library. I don't need to include it in other pages.
Now, searching the web I see that multiple head tags is wrong syntax.
So, how can anyone:
avoid multiple "head" tags
WHILE
separating his work to different PHP files and including them ?
You have to change your page structure and employ templates.
Instead of loading header at the top of the code, you have to do it at the bottom!
And page code should output not a word, but collect all data in variables.
And only after that output can be started by calling template.
A example layout is going to be like this:
First. page itself.
it outputs nothing but only gather required data and calls a template:
<?
//include our settings, connect to database etc.
include dirname($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']).'/cfg/settings.php';
//getting required data
$DATA=dbgetarr("SELECT * FROM links");
$pagetitle = "Links to friend sites";
//etc
//and then call a template:
$tpl = "links.php";
include "template.php";
?>
Next, template.php which is your main site template, consists of your header and footer:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>My site. <?=$pagetitle?></title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="page">
<? include $tpl ?>
</div>
</body>
</html>
And, finally, links.php is the actual page template:
<h2><?=$pagetitle?></h2>
<ul>
<? foreach($DATA as $row): ?>
<li><?=$row['name']?></li>
<? endforeach ?>
<ul>
easy, clean and maintainable.
there are many advantages in such approach:
as requested, you can populate header with actual page-relevant data.
HTTP headers can be sent as well, before any output. It includes cookies, sessions, cache-control and many more.
it's 2011 today. AJAX era. You may wish change your code to return JSONed data instead of whole HTML page. It's going to be easy using such layout.
Imagine you're going to create very similar site with just different design. You will have to change only templates and don't touch engine files. That's really great advantage of using templates.
Here are some simple ways you can look at.
You can have jQuery on the pages
that don't need it; once it's
downloaded it will be cached so it
still wont use more bandwidth.
You can move out the closing </head>
tag from header.php and close the
<head> tag in the page that's including
header.php.
You can include javascript anywhere
on a page, not only in the header.
You can also do something like this.
Before you do require_once 'header.php'; you put a variable called $jquery = true;
In your header.php file you check if $jquery is set to true, if it is, you include jQuery.
in header.php
you can type like this
<head>
<?php echo $script; ?>
</head>
then in your customers.php
you can first assign the variable
$script = '<script>...</script>'
then
require_once 'header.php'
One possible solution.
You create a global variable before including header.php.
You test this variable in header.php.
If it is true, You print script or something. Something like this:
<!-- Fragment of header.php -->
<?php if ($i_want_jquery): ?>
<script ...>
...
</script>
<?php endif; ?>
On the other hand, a template may be a better solution.